DC Antiwar Network invites other peace and justice organizations to
endorse and/or participate in a peaceful “Congress Stand Up to AIPAC”
demonstration on Monday, March 12 from 6:00 to 8:00 pm. We will protest
the “Gala Banquet” of the 2007 American Israel Public Affairs Committee
(AIPAC) annual conference being held at the DC Convention Center.
Dozens of congressional representatives and executive branch officials
will attend the AIPAC banquet. Senate leaders Harry Reid and Mitch
McConnell and house leader Nancy Pelosi will speak. We encourage those
inside and outside of D.C. who cannot attend to take other action:

* call congressional representatives, especially Reid, McConnel and
Pelosi, and ask them NOT to attend the AIPAC conference.

* lobby congressional representatives in person or via phone on March
13th for Palestinian rights and/or against Iraq and Iran wars. On the
afternoon of March 13th one thousand or more AIPAC conference goers will
be lobbying congress in person against Palestinian rights and in support
of war against Iran.

To endorse this call and be listed in the press release e-mail
dawnactivists@yahoo.com by noon March 8, 2007. Feel free to include a
web page link, e-mail or phone contact for our web page http://dawndc.net

OUR CONCERNS

We protest AIPAC, a non-registered agent of the State of Israel, bribing
and bullying American congressional representatives into supporting
Israel, often in ways that ultimately harm Americans. Although AIPAC
does not even represent a majority of American Jews, its massive network
of allied political groups and committed supporters raise money and
apply political muscle with two main goals:

* AIPAC works to perpetuate Israel’s illegal occupation and apartheid
practices in the West Bank and Gaza, including the building of an
“apartheid” wall which has been condemned as illegal by the
International Court of Justice. It supports ongoing discriminatory
practices, land confiscation and ethnic cleansing in both the occupied
territories and Israel. AIPAC and its allies’ propaganda efforts have
misled most Americans into thinking the Palestinians merely are
terrorists trying to destroy Israel, instead of being victims of 60
years of Israeli aggression who seek equal political rights, including
to return to their illegally confiscated lands and homes.

* AIPAC works to protect Israel’s confiscated Palestinian lands by
promoting U.S. dominance in the Middle East. AIPAC and its
“neoconservative” and “Christian Zionist” allies promoted an illegal
American war against Iraq. They now promote an Israeli and/or U.S.
attack on Iran, even though the U.S. Department of Justice is
prosecuting former AIPAC staffers for spying on the U.S. to gain
information about Iran to relay to Israel. AIPAC supports Israeli
threats to attack Iran’s nuclear facilities to force President Bush to
do so. Any attack on Iran could lead to the first use of nuclear weapons
since 1945, deaths of hundreds of thousands of innocent Iranian
civilians, retaliations by Iran and Shiites in Iraq that could kill
thousands of U.S. troops in Iraq, a cut off of oil supplies that could
devastate the world economy, and escalation to regional or even world
nuclear war.

AIPAC’s destructiveness has been highlighted in the last year by the
writings of respected Professors Walt and Mearsheimer (“The Israel Lobby
and U.S. Foreign Policy”) and former President Jimmy Carter (“Palestine:
Peace Not Apatheid”). Dozens of pundits, left, right and mainstream have
echoed their analysis. AIPAC provides ideological propaganda and
political muscle to promote wars that its military contractor allies
need to profit from wars. These special interests undermine American
democracy by making congressional representatives and the president more
responsive to them than to American voters.

Those who sign on to this call demand congress stand up to special
interests like AIPAC, end U.S. support for illegal Israeli policies, end
war on and occupation of Iraq and prevent any war against Iran. We
support just reparations for aggrieved Palestinians and Lebanese for
their economic and personal suffering over many decades.

We predict that should either Israel or the U.S. initiate war against
Iran, the various peace and justice movements, as well as Americans from a variety of groupings, will work to hold accountable those responsible for mass murder against innocent Arabs and Muslims, as well as the unnecessary deaths of thousands of American service people. Such
initiatives might include: driving responsible representatives and
officials from office and electing ones who truly represent the American
people; registering AIPAC and other defacto Israel lobbies as foreign
agents; forbidding anyone with dual citizenship from working in the
United States government; permanently ending all aid to Israel;
prosecuting for war crimes the most culpable American and Israeli
officials and lobbyists; and many other efforts.